MACRODINYCHIDAE Hirschmann, 1979

Kontschán, Jenő, 2011, Notes on the family Macrodinychidae (Acari: Uropodina) with description of two new species, Journal of Natural History 45 (25 - 26), pp. 1619-1636 : 1620-1621

Family MACRODINYCHIDAE Hirschmann, 1979

Macrodinychidae Hirschmann, 1979: 58–70 .

Macrodinychidae Hirschmann in Wiśniewski, 1979 (sic!) Farrier and Hennessey 1996: 162.

Diagnosis

Idiosoma large, oval, posterior margin rounded. Colour yellowish-brown. Legs short and can be found on the apical part of the idiosoma. All legs with welldeveloped ambulacra. Genital shield of female small and oval, similar to genital shield of male. Tritosternum with narrow basis and trifurcated. Gnathosoma: hypostomal setae long, with pilose margins. Corniculi horn-like. Internal malae pilose. Epistome marginally pilose. Chelicerae with internal sclerotized nodes, fixed digit without process.

Remarks

Only one genus ( Macrodinychus Berlese, 1916 ) is known from this family.

Distribution

Circum-tropical, European, Australian and Middle-East.

Notes

In the last comprehensive work ( Krantz and Walter 2009), Macrodinychus species were mentioned as members of the family Dinychidae ( Lindquist et al. 2009) . Unfortunately this statement [fixed cheliceral digit typically with a rounded or acuminate apical “finger” (see ( Lindquist et al. 2009) on page 197], which can be found in the key to the family Dinychidae , is not true for the Macrodinychus species , where this character is lacking on their chelicerae ( Hirschmann 1993). For this reason, I discuss these mites as a separate family.

Biology

Currently there is little information about the biology and ecology of these mites. Bal and Özkan (2005) reported viviparity in Macrodinychus bregetovaae Hirschmann, 1975 because they found about 30 larvae in the female’s body, but this phenomenon has not been recorded in other Macrodinychid species. One species of this family ( Macrodinychus sellnicki Hirschmann and Zirngiebl-Nicol, 1975 ) is a well-known parasite of ant pupae ( Gonzales et al. 2004; Vargas et al. 2004; Krantz et al. 2007), and presumably other species are associated with ant species or live in anthills, but we have no other information.